Yang Hyang-ja urges "Meet Lee Jae-myung," Kim Ki-hyun responds "Regrettable but considering"

After the Founding of Hope of Korea, Preventive Meetings
Yang Hyangja "Yoon Seokyeol and Lee Jae-myung Trying to Clash Head-on"
Kim Gi-hyeon "Proposed Several Meetings but No Response"

Yang Hyang-ja, the leader of Hope of Korea, advised Kim Ki-hyun, the leader of the People Power Party, to meet Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, who is currently on a hunger strike, during their meeting on the 12th. However, Kim effectively declined.

At the National Assembly that day, Yang told Kim, "Communication means the strong listen to and reflect the words of the weak," adding, "Currently, the strong in the executive branch and the legislature neither listen to nor reflect the words of the weak or minorities. President Yoon Seok-yeol and Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung are like two locomotives running face-to-face, heading for a direct collision."

On the 12th, Kim Ki-hyun, the leader, is meeting Yang Hyang-ja, co-representative of Korea's Hope, at the People Power Party office in the National Assembly. 2023.9.12 [Image source=Yonhap News]

Yang said, "It is time for the ruling party to step up. I hope Leader Kim Ki-hyun will play a role," and urged, "Please meet with Leader Lee immediately." She continued, "It is known that his health condition is very poor right now," and suggested, "Please meet and listen to him. Just that alone could resolve many issues."

In response, Kim said, "In the National Assembly, the opposition is the strong party and we are the weak," and lamented, "As soon as the Democratic Party became the opposition, they unilaterally pushed through many bills and have been blindly obstructing government agenda issues, making it difficult to operate the National Assembly."

He added, "I have proposed several times to meet Leader Lee privately and also to have a public TV debate, but there has been no response yet, so the meeting has not taken place. It is not that I refused to meet him."

Kim further expressed, "I feel sorry to hear that his health has deteriorated due to the hunger strike, but I have fundamental concerns about whether such a method will solve the problem," indicating he has no intention of visiting Leader Lee.

The new party Hope of Korea held its founding member meeting in June and officially launched on the 28th of last month, just over two months later. Yang, who was an independent lawmaker, is a co-leader, and Choi Jin-seok, an emeritus professor of philosophy at Sogang University, serves as the standing leader.

Kim told Yang, "I hope the opposition side will think of themselves as partners in national governance," and said, "It would be good if you could play a role as a catalyst in building a constructive relationship between the ruling and opposition parties." He also said, "I hope both sides engage in healthy competition to nurture good young politicians," and added, "I hope we can join forces to maintain a constructive ruling-opposition relationship that goes beyond partnership, sometimes competition, and sometimes cooperation."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.